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Vatican official tells missionaries they are instruments, not protagonists

CWN - May 12, 2011

The assistant secretary of the Congregation for the Evangelization of People told participants in a missionary conferences that they are the servants of evangelization, not its protagonists.

“Mission is not our project; we should feel servants of God's mission, not protagonists,” said Archbishop Piergiuseppe Vacchelli, who also serves as president of the Pontifical Mission Societies. Noting that we live in a time “in which being a Christian is equivalent in many countries to being discriminated and persecuted,” the prelate told national directors of the Pontifical Mission Societies that “the Word of God runs through the continents and cannot be stopped by man. But for this to happen, it needs arms, hearts, messengers to proclaim it.”

The four Pontifical Mission Societies are the Society for the Propagation of the Faith, the Society of St. Peter the Apostle, the Holy Childhood Association, and the Missionary Union of Priests and Religious.

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  • Posted by: normnuke - May. 12, 2011 7:51 PM ET USA

    "instruments, not protagonists" Just what these people need -- murky grandiloquence.

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